Charles Gagnon

Biography

Charles Gagnon was born at Saint-Léon-le-Grand, north of present-day Louiseville in Québec, Canada, on October 26, 1816, a son of Louis Gagnon and Marguerite Plante. He married Cécile Bergeron in the nearby community now called Louiseville on September 18, 1838, when he was twenty-one and she was eighteen. The marriage joined two families already established in the neighbouring parishes.

Their first listed daughter, Adeline, arrived in June 1839. Barbe followed in May 1842, the same month in which Charles’s father died. Barbe lived a little more than a year. Within four years Charles himself was dead: the family compilation dates his death at Saint-Léon-le-Grand to September 9, 1846. He was twenty-nine, and the marriage had lasted just under eight years.

A son bearing his name was born on May 16, 1847, eight months after his death. The boy died in November 1848. Adeline survived to adulthood, and her later marriages appear under the Gagnon name. Charles’s own story remains rooted in Québec; the move to Illinois belonged to Cécile’s later life with her second husband.